After just 10 minutes, the Barcelona superstar gave his side the lead as his 25-yard free-kick found the back of the net, via the underside of the crossbar.

It was the sign of things to come.

He produced numerous other moments of magic - including two assists. And his first set-up was just beautiful.

Messi squared up an opponent, put him on his backside with a shimmy, before dinking a perfect ball for Lucas Pratto to head home.

Messi's first assist

Take a look at the nonchalant assist (Fast forward to 0:50):

But he wasn’t finished there.

He continued to terrorise the Colombian defence and Argentina got their third with just minutes remaining to kill off the match. This time, the five-time Ballon d’Or winner showed brilliant tenacity to win the ball off a defender, before squaring the ball to Angel di Maria to finish.

Messi's second assist

Messi certainly walked the walk after he had talked the talk following the defeat to Brazil.

He was obviously devastated by the heavy loss to the Selecao and urged his teammates to perform better against the Colombians.

"Within all the bad things and the s*** we are in, we still depend on ourselves," he said.

"If we defeat Colombia we get back into the fight again, all the teams are near.

"But it is true we are aware and we know that this is not the way to do things.

"We have to change a lot to defeat Colombia."

Against Colombia, Messi certainly did his talking on the pitch in a victory that sees them leapfrog their opponents into fifth in the qualification table and puts them within a point of Ecuador in third.

We could well be seeing Messi and co. in Russia after all.

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